Anarchy vs. Stability: Dictatorships and Chaos Go Hand in Hand

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/stable-dictatorships-are-not-the-lesser-evil-a-996278.html



The argument that a stable, autocratic state is better than a failed one has become increasingly fashionable. But it misses the fact that autocracies are ultimately the source of that chaos.

Anarchy vs. Stability: Dictatorships and Chaos Go Hand in Hand
A Commentary By Mathieu von Rohr
October 09, 2014 – 06:35 PM

The fall of dictators is not always a cause for joy, my colleague Christiane Hoffmann wrote in an essay published yesterday on SPIEGEL International. If the citizens of a country were to have the option of choosing between a "functional dictatorship and the chaos of a failing or failed state," she argued, the dictatorship would often be the "lesser evil" because it promises continued stability.

It's a seductive thesis that has gained renewed traction since the outbreak of civil war in Syria. The Arab Spring unleased exaggerated hope for Middle East democratization -- and now that idealists have been disappointed almost everywhere, the proponents of so-called realpolitik are once again arguing that, although their message of stability may sound unsympathetic and maybe even cynical, it's realistic. But is it really?

Some citizens or members of the international community may understandably want to reminisce about the intermittently prevailing sense of order that existed under a toppled dictator, as gruesome as the leader might have been. But it is also an optical illusion. The mistake lies in even describing a dictatorship as stable: If the dictatorships of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya or Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia had been stable, they wouldn't have collapsed.

Despite what some may think, the trajectory of the Arab uprisings does not support the argument that dictatorship is a better alternative to chaos. It tells the story of authoritarian regimes that were in part propped up by the West for decades -- using exactly this argument -- and then ultimately fell apart surprisingly quickly. Their foundations had been eaten away by youth unemployment, economic problems or state-instituted degradations.